


coming into view as the world is turning

by fangirl_squee



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, clementine kesh tries to sort of make friends for the first time in her life, general partizan spoilers, partizan spoilers up to episode 3, this will certainly be non canonical after episode five
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:07:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22332379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirl_squee/pseuds/fangirl_squee
Summary: Simple doesn’t mean safe, and if Crysanth can’t trust the military then Clem certainly can’t, and the palace guards aren’t subtle or deadly enough to protect her against a threat capable of high-level deception. Luckily, she has her own pool of personal bodyguards she can pull from.Or, Clem works with her team.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37





	coming into view as the world is turning

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'Sadie's Song' from Steven Universe, a Clem song imo.

Clem's bedroom is too large to be practical, really. All her bedrooms have been, although this is the smallest one she’s ever had (part of her punishment, perhaps). Even so, the furnishings are as luxurious and as sparse as ever in the room, making every sound echo. She cracks her eye open as she hears the door open - just a maid, no doubt coming to wake her. Clem shuts her eyes and plays at being asleep. People don’t try too hard to wake her unless there is actually something for her to be woken for.

The maid’s shoes tap lightly on the floor as she approaches, the rustle of cloth indicating that she’s putting away Clem’s clothes from the day before, tidying things up. The maid pauses at the bed, then moves away, then moves towards the bed again.

Clem sighs, not opening her eyes. “What is it?”

“Your mother is on a call for you,” says the maid, sounding appropriately hesitant, “Should I ask her to call back?”

Clem’s eyes snap open and she sits up in bed. “No, I’ll- bring it in here please.”

Clem is up and pulling on her robe before the maid is even out the door. She smoothes her hair down with one hand, yanking open a draw on the closest table and fumbling around in search of a hair tie.

There isn’t one, of course. The drawer is empty - only two of the tables actually have things in them, and the one with her makeup is on the far side of the room. The rest are more for decoration than for anything else.

She can hear the maid returning with the call, so she twists her hair as tightly as she can and tucks it under the collar of her robe. Hopefully it will look enough like a groomed hairstyle on the call.

The call is already connected as the maid brings it into the room, her mother’s face hovering in neon lights on the glass projector screen. Clem tries to stand as straight as possible, her hands behind her back to stop herself from fidgeting.

Crysanth arches an eyebrow. “Still abed?”

Clem’s toes curl on the cold tile floor. “Just... reviewing some documents before I got started for the day. I must have lost track of time.”

“You must have,” says her mother flatly. “You’ll have to set aside whatever you were doing, something’s come up.”

Clem twists her hands behind her back as her mother talks, trying not to focus on how her hair is slowly escaping the collar of her robe. If her mother notices, she doesn’t say anything, turning away from the call before she’s even disconnected it.

Well. Her mother is very busy. It’s a very busy time for them all.

The mission itself is simple enough, go to an event in Westhaven with some military brass and see if any of them seem like the type to leak information. The Swordbreakers have been far too effective of late, precise down to the minute, and Crysanth has suspicions she would like confirmed.

However, simple doesn’t mean _safe_ , and if Crysanth can’t trust the military then Clem certainly can’t, and the palace guards aren’t subtle or deadly enough to protect her against a threat capable of high-level deception. Luckily, she has her own pool of personal bodyguards she can pull from.

“So you want us to… go with you to a party?” says Millie. “I mean, okay, sure.”

“Well, not all of you will be _at_ the party,” says Clem, “Leap and AO will be providing outside support, in the event that the traitor attempts an escape.”

Millie glances at Sovereign Immunity. “Is that why they’re going in a separate car to us?”

“In part,” says Clem, “But this will also be an upscale event, and I need you both to look the part. I have brought some things for you both to change into.”

Millie arches her eyebrows. "You want us to borrow your clothes?"

"No," says Clem, not looking up from where she's scanning over the party guest list, "I bought some for you."

Sovereign Immunity looks down at the brown wrap he has draped over his prison uniform, then back up again.

He clears his throat. “I… would feel more comfortable in my own clothing.”

Clem doesn’t look up. “It’s not about your comfort, it’s about blending in.”

“So these are _fancy_ clothes,” says Millie slowly. She pauses. “Sure, okay, lets see it.”

Clem walks the the panel at the back of the transport they’re in, entering the quick code sequence that opens the container. The doors open with a hiss, and Clem takes a step backwards as the clothing rack unfolds from it.

Obviously Clem has her own ideas about what would _actually_ look good on them, sleek suits and gowns that would help them fade into the background of the party, but she thought it was highly unlikely she’d be able to convince them to actually _wear_ them, so she’d gone with a compromise - silken robes of silver and slate grey for Sovereign Immunity, and structured formalwear for Millie (with a few other pieces thrown in, in case she needed to sweeten the deal).

Sovereign Immunity grabs the first outfit closest to him and ducks behind a crate to change. Millie carefully looks over each item before she separates a few of them. She shrugs out of her jacket and pulls her worn t-shirt over her head.

Clem quickly looks back down at the datapad in her hands, scrolling quickly up and down.

"How do I look?"

Clem looks up.

When she'd been younger, she'd gone to a party where they'd had people dressed as Apostalisians swimming in tanks that lined the walls, breathing through artificial masks that they'd tried to disguise as gills and fins. She'd known it was just costumes of course, she would _never_ have been allowed to go to a party where there were _real_ Apostalisians, but she'd been fascinated by how they'd looked, their fake scales glittering under the neon lights, slyly grinning at her from the other side of the glass. 

Millie doesn't look a thing like those Apostalisian costumes. She doesn't look like anyone who would have ever been to that party, even in the gown she's currently draped in. 

She looks better, the black dress hugging her shoulders and the purple leather accents of the dress gleaming in the lights. Mille grins at her, bright and sharp.

Clem's breath catches in her throat for a moment. She swallows. 

"It's not exactly a practical outfit for you," says Clem, “But I suppose it will have to do.”

Millie rolls her eyes, and turns back to examine her reflection in the thin mirror on the wall.

“I’m keeping this dress,” says MIllie, “And the rest of this stuff.”

“That depends entirely on how well this mission goes,” says Clem.

  
  


It goes well enough, but Crysanth will surely notice if she lets a prisoner have an entirely new wardrobe, so Clem only lets her keep the dress she was wearing. It would hardly be professional of her to demand Millie strip out of it after the mission, after all, so it’s an understandable oversight for her to keep the dress.

As for the outfits… well, she’s not really sure what to do with them. They’re quite nice even if they’re not entirely her style, and so it seems a waste to throw them away. After all, perhaps she’ll need to send Millie on another undercover assignment. Perhaps she could use the clothing as leverage in some way.

Besides, one of her wardrobes was entirely empty. It’s easy enough to store the rest of the clothes there, with plenty of room left over if she ever needs the extra space.

\--

“Your music sucks,” says Millie, the moment she walks into Clem’s room.

“I believe I asked for your assessment of the safety status of this room,” says Clem, “Not your artistic critique for the previous room’s music collection.”

“It’s a safety hazard to your ears,” says Millie.

Clem huffs. ”Will you take this seriously?”

MIllie turns slowly, looking around the room. “Looks fine to me!”

Clem crosses her arms.

MIllie rolls her eyes. “Listen, if someone out there can get through your layers of guards and security systems and whatever, I don’t think that having your bedroom be slightly more secure is really going to help.”

“Yeah,” says Leap, “Unless you made it into a vault. Although I guess this room already _looks_ like a vault.”

Clem frowns. “What do you mean?”

Leap shrugs. “I mean, there’s stuff here but it’s like…”

“The vibe is empty,” says Millie.

“Yeah!” says Leap, “Yeah, exactly, the vibe is empty.”

Clem frowns. “The vibe.”

Millie nods. “Yeah, like… aren’t you like, super rich?”

There’s not really any non-garish way to answer that.

“We’re… comfortable.”

MIllie snorts. “Right. So like, where’s your _stuff_?”

“It’s… here?”

“Wait,” says Leap, “You _live_ here? Like, in this room?”

“Yes?” says Clem.

“Wow,” says Leap. “You make a lot more sense now.”

“It’s got a good layout,” says Sovereign Immunity, “Good line of sight.”

“Yeah,” says Leap, “Because there’s basically nothing in here. This is like the fancy version of our cells.”

“I like it this way,” snaps Clem.

“Yeah, I mean, you would,” says Millie.

“And just what is _that_ supposed to mean?”

Millie holds up her hands, framing Clem and then turning back to the room. “It’s like… You match.”

“The vibes match,” says Leap.

“Yeah, exactly,” says Millie, “The vibes match.”

“Let’s move on to the next room,” says Sovereign Immunity, “This room looks clear to me.”

Millie gives him a loose salute, and Leap laughs, following her out. Clem pauses, looking back at the room. It is, perhaps, a little too empty for the space she has, but she’s never thought of that as a problem. She’s never really at home enough to be bothered by it, and inevitably she’ll be moved on again before too long. It’s always been the way, ever since she was a child. Decorating seems like a waste.

Sovereign Immunity clears his throat. “Your highness?”

Clem turns, walking past him without a word. Her room is fine, of course. Foolish of her to consider the aesthetic tastes of an Apostalisian and a pirate over her own good sense.

  
  


\--

  
  


Leap eats a great deal of food. Clem understands why, of course, she’s read through the briefing of how being an equiaxed works, but it doesn’t make it any less distracting, especially in close quarters. They’ve been waiting on the outcropping for hours. It’s only natural that irritation has begun to set in.

He’s rustling around in his bag, pulling things out before he makes a pleased noise, bringing out a crushed packet of some kind of seaweed snack. He frowns, reading the back of the packet and sighing heavily.

“ _What_?” says Clem.

“This food sucks,” says Leap.

“What does it matter,” says Clem, “Food is food.”

MIllie’s snort come through with a burst of static in her earpiece. “Spoken like a true Stel Kesh princess.”

“I don’t know how I would speak any other way,” says Clem, ignoring Millie’s scornful tone.

Leap lets out a laugh. “I guess!” He pauses. “Hey, since you’re a princess, could you get us better food?”

“I already got you better food.”

“No, you got me cafeteria access,” says Leap, “that is _absolutely_ a different thing.”

“I would have thought, for you, that quantity would outweigh quality,” says Clem.

Leap’s eye shutter narrows and widens, which she’s come to learn is his way of making a distasteful expression.

“Sort of,” says Leap, “But I’d still like it if I could eat something other than seaweed cracker flakes and old granola bars on these missions.”

“Target approaching at two o’clock,” says Sovereign Immunity in her ear.

“We’ll discuss this later,” says Clem.

  
  


She doesn’t really have any intention to, but then Leap dives into the fray to pull her out of the line of fire _again_ , taking a bullet through the shoulder for his troubles. It’s not that she feels badly about it, he leaks grimy fluid all over her dress as they help each other back to cover, so they’re obviously even on that account. At any rate, they’re prisoners and this is their mission, after all. Really, she does it so he stops complaining on the trip back.

She sends some to the prison, diverting the remainder of the supply to her own rooms. It’s safer storage, and it’s easier to gather it as supplies for their missions that way. It’s not like she doesn’t have the space - she simply moves (well, has the servants move) a few of her tables around to clear space, and then she has a tapestry thrown over it.

It brings a splash of colour to the room, really. She’s been reading about how something like that can bring a room together.

She wonders if it’s improved the _vibe_.

\--

When Clem blinks awake, the clock at her bedside informs her that she’s been asleep for almost twelve hours. She frowns, piecing together the events of the previous evening - a meeting, an exchange of information, a double cross, a blow to the back of her head…

Her head spins a little as she sits up, reaching for her datapad. A movement catches her eye and she freezes, turning slowly to face it.

Sovereign Immunity is slumped in a large armchair, fast asleep, a blaster held loosely in his lap. She recognises the chair as one from the sitting room down the hall. It doesn’t quite suit her room, for all Sovereign Immunity looks at home in it.

She’s a little surprised at such a lack of focus on his duty. She remembers the look of surprise on his face as she went down, rushing towards her. Perhaps she'll let him stew in his guilt a little about it. It’s certainly made him more effective in battle in the past, after all. 

Clem watches him for a long moment. Her head still aches a little from where she was hit, and she waits until she can stand without the room spinning. The doors are still locked when she checks them, so at least he’s been paying enough attention to cover the most basic of protection duties.

Behind her, Sovereign Immunity lets out a soft snore. Clem presses her lips together to stifle a laugh. Her life certainly has taken a turn for the absurd, to have a monk asleep in her room.

Still, perhaps, given the direct attempts on her life of late, retaining a bodyguard is not the worst idea. If that bodyguard is motivated by guilt, well, better still.

She unlocks the door and eases it open, stepping outside before she calls her mother. She actually only means to send a message, but her vision is a little blurred, and she hits the wrong button.

The call rings for a long time.

“Clementine,” says Crysanth, still focusses down where she’s writing something, the scratch of her pen coming through on the call. “What is it?”

“I- I thought I should check in. To let you know that I was alive.”

“I had been informed,” says Crysanth. “It was foolish of you to take the meeting.”

“I had back up,” says Clem.

“You had three criminals.”

Something rises in Clem’s throat, itchy and hot, forcing the words out. “They’ve proven themselves capable in the past.” She pauses, taking a quick breath to get her through the next sentence. “They probably saved my life.”

Crysanth’s pen stops moving. “Saved your life…”

Clem straightens her shoulders. “Yes.”

Crysanth looks up. “Watch that you do not get too comfortable with them, Clementine."

Clem feels herself go cold. "I- of course."

"It is admirable to take care of one's tools," says Crysanth, "but one does not throw a birthday party for a hammer."

“Of course,” says Clem, “I- it won’t happen again.”

Crysanth’s gaze fixes on her. Clem presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth.

“If that’s all Clementine? I’m quite busy.”

“Yes, of course-”

Crysanth hangs up.

Clem lets out a long breath. “Goodbye mother.”

She creeps back into her bedroom. Sovereign Immunity is still fast asleep. Clem watches him for the space of a few breaths, then moves quietly across the room to sit down at her desk and begins to write to the warden, a short missive asking to transfer Sovereign Immunity over to her, in permanent advisory position. She pauses, pen hovering over the tablet for a moment before she adds a couple of lines, requesting Sovereign Immunity’s two assistants be transferred too. After all, diplomacy is a difficult business. He will undoubtedly require assistance. 

  
  


The chair remains after Sovereign Immunity wakes. Slowly, it is joined by a thick knit blanket and a little footstool, the perfect accompaniment to reading through intel reports, and the pile of thick blankets and rugs MIllie and Leap bring in for when they camp out on her floor for “her protection”.

She’s a princess, after all, and her life has been under threat rather a lot lately. She’s only being practical.

Slowly, wardrobes and drawers fill with this and that - loot that Leap hasn’t been able to fence and the sound system that Millie drags in and whatever dusty tome Sovereign Immunity has decided that she should read for her diplomatic education. Despite the room’s size, it actually ends up a little cluttered.

Clem directs the maids specifically to leave it all as it is. The rest of the palace can remain as pristine as when she arrived, but Clem has begun to relish the change as she crosses the threshold into her room.

\--

  
  


The palace, while well-guarded and secured, is not a prison, and is not really a match for Millie and Leap’s desire to escape it.

It takes them quite a lot longer than she would have expected, in retrospect. They even wait until she and Sovereign Immunity are away on assignment, drawing her mother’s ire to the palace guards rather than to Clem herself.

Her bedroom feels larger, without their noise to fill it. She’s not entirely sure if she should be grateful. 

A few months later she receives a postcard. It's made of clear resin, thin wires streaking through it, glittering with light in response to sound. Clem turns it around in her hands slowly, and then goes to the desk, where MIllie kept her music discs. It doesn't take her long to find the right track, although the screeching of the singer is much less grating than the first time she heard it. 

The wires crackle, the light spreading along the filament until the words form. 

_Wish you were here (sort of)_

There's something else too. A pattern of stars, not enough to be coordinates, but enough for a general location. Clem taps the postcard against her palm for a moment, considering.

Sovereign Immunity pauses after he looks over the postcard, raising his head to meet her eyes. "It's a dangerous area.”

Clem doesn't look up from where she's carefully choosing items for her suitcase. "I'm sure we'll be fine. After all, it's about time I took a trip, don’t you think?”

Sovereign Immunity stills for a moment. “We do work very hard.”

“Exactly,” says Clem, “that’s- that’s it exactly. Ready our mechs will you? But- quietly.”

“Of course,” says Sovereign Immunity.

Time for her to get off this rock.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi: mariusperkins on most places


End file.
